Yermiyahu Ahron Taub is a poet and writer in English and Yiddish and a translator of Yiddish literature into English. His works of fiction are Beloved Comrades: a Novel in Stories (Quanah, Texas: Anaphora Literary Press, 2020), second place (silver) winner of a CIPA EVVY Award (LGBTQ Fiction) and named a finalist for a Foreword/INDIES Award (Religious (Adult Fiction)) and Prodigal Children in the House of G-d: Stories (London; Cambridge; New York; Sharjah: Austin Macauley, 2018), winner of two CIPA EVVY Merit Awards (LGBTQ Fiction and Religious/Spiritual Fiction) and named a finalist for a Foreword INDIES Award (Religious (Adult Fiction)). He is the author of seven books of poetry: Night Breaks in the Garret: Poems and Peregrinations/Alos-ha-layle afn boydem: lider un rayzes (Georgetown, Ky.: Finishing Line Press, 2026), A moyz tsvishn vakldike volkn-kratsers: geklibene Yidishe lider/A Mouse Among Tottering Skyscrapers: Selected Yiddish Poems (Tel Aviv: Bibliotek fun der haynttsaytiker Yidisher literatur/Library of Contemporary Yiddish Literature, 2017), The Education of a Daffodil/Di bildung fun a geln nartsis (Saarbrucken, Germany: Hadassa Word Press, 2017), Prayers of a Heretic/Tfiles fun an apikoyres (Austin, Tex.: Plain View Press, 2013), Uncle Feygele (Austin, Tex.: Plain View Press, 2011), What Stillness Illuminated/Vos shtilkayt hot baloykhtn (West Lafayette, Ind.:Parlor Press, 2008), and The Insatiable Psalm(Hershey, Pa.: Wind River Press, 2005). Tsugreytndik zikh tsu tantsn: naye Yidishe lider/Preparing to Dance: New Yiddish songs is a CD of nine of his Yiddish poems set to music composed by Michał Górczyński and performed by Malerai–Goldstein–Masecki (Poznan, Poland: Multikulti Project, 2014).
Honored by the Museum of Jewish Heritage as one of New York ’s best emerging Jewish artists, Taub has been nominated four times for a Pushcart Prize and twice for a Best of the Net Award. In June 2012, Uncle Feygele was included by poet and editor of Beltway Poetry Quarterly Kim Roberts on her “Recommended Reads: Recent Books of Note by and About GLBTQ Poets with Strong DC Ties.”Three of Taub’s poetry books were selected by the critic Amos Lassen for his “The Best in LGBT Literature of 2011: a Personal List.” His poems have appeared in numerous journals and anthologies, including including Capital Queer: A Pride Celebration from Washington Writers’ Publishing House (Washington Writers’ Publishing House, 2025), This Is What America Looks Like: Washington Writers’ Publishing House Anthology: Poetry & Fiction from DC, Maryland, Virginia (Washington Writers’ Publishing House, 2021), Bettering American Poetry, Volume 3 (Bettering Books, 2020), A ring : antologye : Yidishe poezye : der nokhn-Ḥurbn-dor/ Ring : anthology : Yiddish poetry (Biblioteḳ fun der haynṭtsayṭiḳer Yidisher liṭeraṭur/Library of Contemporary Yiddish Literature, Tel-Aviv, 2017), Liberation: New Works on Freedom from Internationally Renowned Poets(Beacon Press, 2015); This Assignment Is So Gay: LGBTIQ Poets on the Art of Teaching (Sibling Rivalry Press, 2013); the “Naye Yidishe literatur/New Yiddish Literature” issue of Afn shvel magazine (League for Yiddish, Winter-Spring 2013); Between: New Gay Poetry (Chelsea Station Editions, 2013); Collective Brightness: LGBTIQ Poets on Faith, Religion & Spirituality(Sibling Rivalry Press, 2011); Trot bay trot: haynttsaytike Yidishe poezye/Step By Step: Contemporary Yiddish Poetry(Verbarium/Quodlibet, 2009); and The Prairie Schooner Anthology of Contemporary Jewish American Writing (University of Nebraska Press, 1998). Taub has completed artist residencies at Good Contrivance Farm (Reisterstown, Md., 2025), the Fairhope Center for the Writing Arts’ Wolff Cottage Writer-in-Residence Program (Fairhope, Ala.; 2024), Rockvale Writers’ Colony (College Grove, Tenn.; 2023), A.I.R. Studio Paducah (Paducah, Ky.; 2018), the now shuttered Rivendell Writers’ Colony (Sewanee, Tenn.; 2016), The Writers’ Colony at Dairy Hollow (Eureka Springs, Ark.; 2015), and Virginia Center for the Creative Arts(Amherst, Va.; 2014).
Taub is a translator from the Yiddish. He is currently translating Durkhgelebt a velt: zikhroynes by Lifshe Schaechter-Widman (1893-1973). Blessed Hands: Stories, Taub’s translation of Gebentshte hent: dertseylungen by Frume Halpern (1881-1888(?)-1965) appeared in October 2023 from Frayed Edge Press and was awarded two CIPA-EVVY Awards (silver in the category of Religious/Spiritual Fiction and gold in the category of Women’s Fiction). Additionally, Blessed Hands: Stories was selected for inclusion on the Kirkus Reviews Best Indie Literary Fiction of 2024 list. Dineh: an Autobiographical Novel, Taub’s translation of Dineh: oytobiografishe dertseylung by Ida Maze (pronounced MAA-zeh; also rendered as Maza and Massey; 1893-1962) was published by White Goat Pressof the Yiddish Book Center in March 2022 and was awarded a CIPA-EVVY Award (silver) in the category of Women’s Fiction and an NYC Big Book Award winner in the category of Jewish literature. As a 2018 Yiddish Book Center Translation Fellow, he translated three memoirs—Di vos zaynen nisht geblibn/Those Who Didn’t Survive, Di antloyfers/The Fugitives, and Fun gsise tsum lebn/From Agony to Life—by Rachmil Bryks (1912-1974). The translated memoirs were published in May 2020 by Lexington Books, an imprint of Rowman & Littlefield, in its Lexington Studies in Jewish Literature series, under the collective title, May God Avenge Their Blood: a Holocaust Memoir Triptych. A paperback version was released in December 2021. With co-translator Ellen Cassedy, Taub was awarded the 2012 Yiddish Book Center Translation Prize and the 2014-2017 Fenia and Yaakov Leviant Memorial Prize in Yiddish Studies for Oedipus in Brooklyn and Other Stories by Blume Lempel (1907-1999) (Mandel Vilar Press and Dryad Press, 2016). Oedipus in Brooklyn and Other Stories underwent a second printing in March 2022. He appears in, edited the English subtitles for the Yiddish dialogue, and received an additional writing credit for Divan (Zeitgeist, 2003), a documentary film by Pearl Gluck, and he served as a creative consultant for Ms. Gluck’s narrative short films Where is Joel Baum(2012) and Summer (2017). Several of Taub’s poems are recited by Lynn Cohen, z”l, (1933-2020) in Ms. Gluck’s film Castles in the Sky (2023).
Taub is a member of the American Literary Translators Association (ALTA) and a member of the Board of Directors of the League for Yiddish, and he is active in the Association of Jewish Libraries (AJL), the professional organization of Hebraica and Judaica librarians. In June 2024, he completed a term as the President of AJL’s Research, Archive, and Special Collections (RAS) Division, and in February 2022, he completed a term as the president of the Association of Jewish Libraries/Capital Area Chapter (AJL/CAC). He was a co-chairperson of “Yovel/Jubilee: 50 Years of AJL!” the June 2015 conference celebrating the Association’s fiftieth anniversary. Taub has served as Chairperson of the Fanny Goldstein Merit Award Committee, which honors outstanding contributors to the field of Hebraica and Judaica librarianship, and was a founding member of the AJL Jewish Fiction Award Committee. He edited the exhibition catalog, Mattityahu Strashun (1817-1885): Scholar, Leader, and Book Collector (New York, N.Y.: YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, 2001).
Yermiyahu Ahron Taub was born and raised in an Orthodox community in Philadelphia, Pa. He received his secondary education at the Talmudical Yeshiva of Philadelphia and the Mechina High School of the Ner Israel Rabbinical College in Baltimore, Md. He graduated Phi Beta Kappa and summa cum laude from Temple University, where he was also named a President’s Scholar. Taub earned a Master of Arts degree in history from Emory University and a Master of Library and Information Science degree from Queens College, City University of New York.
Yermiyahu Ahron Taub lives in Washington, D.C.
Photo credit: Pearl Gluck.